Pitfalls of text book journalism (American style)

Source your stories and give both sides of the
story. This is an old dictum of journalism. However, this would not
remove bias from news stories. In most cases, there would be more than
two sides to a story. Sometimes, only one side would be dominant. The
other side will be virtually unperceivable.

This is what happened to American journalism and the public who were
made to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attack of the
World Trade Centre. If the majority of the American public believed
that Hussein had links with al Qaeda, it was not mainly because of the
war mongering or opinioncasts of Fox News or others. It was
because the other side was virtually absent from news reports. Most of
the stories on Iraq were sourced from U. S. Administration, which
suggested that Saddam was aiming weapons of mass destruction at
Americans. The other side-- that Iraq just did not have the capability
to be of any threat to the U. S., was simply absent.

Truth:
However, there is no guarantee that truth will emerge if the other side
is present. When I was a junior reporter, I used to cover the College
Union elections of the Kerala University. The main contenders in the
elections were the Students Federation of India (SFI) and Kerala
Students Union (KSU). As the elections were supposed to be
non-political, the affiliated colleges never mentioned the name of the
students organisations in the results. After each election, both the
organisations would claim that they had won majorities in most of the
colleges. As it was not easy to verify this claim immediately, all
newspapers carried the claims of both the organisations. The readers
were left guessing.

During one of these elections, I arranged contacts to get a clear
picture of the results from every district before the deadline. By late
evening I could conclude that the SFI had won the majority of seats. I
reported the finding from Trivandrum along with the usual claim
(statement) from the SFI that they had won. However, the next morning I found that my newspaper preferred to be on the safe side with both sides of the story. My intro was cut and the story was converted into one with a heading to the effect that both sides claimed victory.
The KSU leaders had gone to Ernakulam, the district where they had won
the majority of seats, and held a press conference there to make their
claims. This was a clever move. They could sound convincing in
Ernakulam as the KSU had won in most of the colleges in and around
Ernakulam.

Both the stories landed at the desk shortly before deadline. And the
desk thought it fit not to depend upon the finding of their junior
reporter. Often, there is a tendency to treat such findings as
reporter's opinion and shun them. Actually, I could ascertain
the truth because I contacted multiple sources including smaller
students' organisations and principals. But the both sides principle
prevented it from reaching the readers. (When there are multiple
sources, it is impossible to quote all of them and write a readable
story of reasonable length.)

Opinion:
A newspaper organisation that cares for the facts it gathers and treats
them as sacred would not be tarnished by its opinion (though extreme
forms of opinion would affect circulation). It would be ideal to
separate news from opinion. However, most readers are capable of
distinguishing between news and views. Their capability need not be
underestimated. So, mixing news and views is less of a crime than
erring on facts. (It is also notable early Indian journalism did not
shun opinion in its news columns. The ideas changed after the
profession came under American influence.) If facts are presented
correctly, you cannot have an argument that negates them.

Camouflaging opinion:
It is also well known that reporters camouflage their own opinion in
news stories. They may begin by saying that "people say",
"environmentalists say". What they state at times may be their personal
opinion. But, if a reporter is experienced and professional, it can
also be an attempt to balance the story. Sometimes, the reporters may
know that that the view exists or is to emerge. Persons holding those
views may not be easily reachable or may be silent.

American reporters, who could have sensed the real purpose of
Pentagon's accusations against Iraq, could have spoken about scepticism
in some quarters about Pentagon's claims about the existance of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq though those sceptics would have been hard
to find in that country before the war!